News & Information for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts

Main menu

Search form

You are here

Lazy Man's Brioche

October 25, 2010 - 2:36pm

Floydm

Lazy Man's Brioche

In The Bread Baker's Apprentice Peter Reinhart offers up three variations of brioche: Poor Man's Brioche, Middle-Class Brioche, and Rich Man's Brioche, each version getting more full of eggs and butter than the previous.

This weekend I came up with a brioche recipe that I'm extremely happy with. I dubbed it the "Lazy Man's Brioche."

This recipe is based on the brioche recipe from Ciril Hitz's Baking Artisan Bread. I started with Hitz's recipe but then rounded every number and cut every corner I could. The result is perhaps not as authentic as Hitz's recipe but still delicious.

There are two pieces of gear required to keep this recipe lazy: a mixer and a scale. I'm sure you could make the same thing using measuring cups and kneading by hand but that would take work. Using brioche pans or adding little tetes on top of each bun would also be more authentic and attractive, but the goal here was not to be beautiful or complex, just come up with something simple, repeatable, and delicious.

Add all of the ingredients to your mixer and mix it until the dough becomes silky. This takes a long time, somewhere in the 10-20 minute range (I think I did around 15). If the dough sticks to the sides or the paddle too much, take breaks and scrape the dough back down into the bowl.

When it is well mixed, shape the dough into a ball and place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, approximately 1 hour. Degas the dough and allow it to rise a second time, for another hour or so.

Cut the dough into 12 pieces (I used the scale and weighed them out at 3 ounces each). Shape the dough into balls. If you want to fill them, do so here by placing the chocolate chips on them before pinching them closed.

(Those are mini-chocolate chips by the way... the entire bun is only two or three inches across.)

Place the dough balls seam side down in brioche pans or muffin tins. Cover loosely with plastic and allow to rise until doubled in size and well above the pan, approximately 45 minutes.

While they are rising, make the egg wash and preheat the oven to 365.

Brush the brioche gently with egg wash before putting the pans near the middle of the preheated oven. I placed mine on the third shelf down out of four.

Bake the brioche for 10 minutes then rotate the pan. Bake them another 10 minutes or until they appear to be done.

If your pans were greased well, you should be able to shake the brioche out of the pan while they are still hot. Be careful if the eggwash spilled onto the pans though, because the cooked egg will "glue" the brioche into the pans. I had to gently break through the eggwash with a knife before I could get a few of my buns out of the pans.

Floyd those look really good and not that far off from the way traditional brioche looks minus the tete, molding etc.

Here's a question for you, do these have any similarity in taste and/or texture to the elusive Murchie's scone formula that we've both been trying to duplicate? They look like they could be in the ballpark from the photo you posted of Murchie's scones a few months back

I think if you started it with the hand mixer and mixed it till it was fairly cohesive, then finished it by hand, it would work just fine. Your KA hand mixer might be able to do the whole job of developing the dough, but I've never used one so can't say for sure. Give it a shot, since one or the other method will certainly work.

Floyd - they look just like those Chinese Char Siew (barbequed pork) Bun that we have in Asia.....so, instead of chocolate, we can put Char Siew in them! I must give it a try - I'm sure my colleagues will love it. Lovely!! thanks for sharing this recipe.

first the buns look great, maybe if you added cream instead of milk they would be more like the Murchie scones.

number 2: I have tried refreshing the p[age three times now, but the same pictures don't load these start at the one with the chocolate chips, I get about 1/3 rd of it, then the one directly under about the same or even less and then the one under that, then it goes back to full sized normal pictures, I then tried the printer friendly option and the same three pictures are the same way!

I have satellite internet, high speed, and don't have this problem with other sites, so am wondering why with yours, and only on some occasions.

I have gone back to a post and had the same problem several weeks later, and also had the pictures all show up. Its not my browser, and its not my internet, and its not my settings, so have come to the conclusion it must be a gateway someplace that is not working right, as we have had that happen before!

I made your lazy brioche with my kids and their neighbor's. It was really fun to make such a easy and tasty bread. They loved to knead and shape the dough, of course, they enjoyed to decolate their bread at the end.

I just baked a batch using your Lazy Man's Brioche rccipe and that recipe is truly a winner! I've tried several others including Reinharts, Siverton's, Julia's, etc. and for ease of use and great results yours has to take the cake (so to speak)!

It's a great basis for many other recipes and tortes and rolls, etc., and I can't wait to experiment a bit more.

I made these about a month ago and don't recall making any significant changes. I may have mixed a bit less than 15 minutes, but I still went until it was really silky and could pass the windowpane test.

I made a half batch of these last week and they turned out great. I was at my mom's place (without my KA) and mixed/kneaded by hand, which was really just using a rubber spatula and turning and folding the dough for about 10 minutes until smooth. The only other change I made was that I scaled and shaped 3 oz. balls after just 1 rise. Since my muffin tins are a bit small, I ended up with some funny mushroom-shaped rolls (haha). I think next time I'll just ditch the muffin tins and make hamburger rolls. I also might add a touch more sugar. Anyway, these were quite good and I found that they refresh very nicely in a steamer for about 5 minutes.

Hi Floyd, those brioche are looking so decadent and am looking forward to make some tomorrow. May I know if you were using some cold or room temperature butter please? They looked like if you just pulled them out from the fridge prior to mixing in the picture that you posted. I believe the cold butter could yield a 'fluffy' result, same as one would to do it for the puff pastry or pie dough? Appreciate the clarification on the temperature of the butter. Also,did you use the paddle attachment or the dough hook for mixing? Many thanks in advance.

Hi Floyd, the brioche is out from the oven. The recipe is great but I guess I'll have to fine tune it a little to suit my liking. I guess I'd love them to be sweeter. Having said that, the buns came out fluffy but not very buttery. All in all, thank you again for sharing such simple yet good recipe.

I recently had the most delicious chocolate chip brioche bun at Tout de Sweet Bakery in Bethesda, MD. The chocolate chips (or just chopped bits of chocolate) were distributed throughout the bun and it had been baked on a pan rather than in a mold. Do folks foresee any problems with incorporating the chocolate bits throughout the dough at final shaping time? What, if anything, is the advantage (aside from aesthetics) of actual brioche molds vs a muffin pan for these? I'm thinking I should try it in muffin pans before investing in brioche molds but maybe also looking for a bakeware-purchasing enabler :-p

The flour weight in Floydm's formula is 500 grams. 1 lb is approximately 454 g (453.59.... g), and that should be about right for a 1 lb loaf pan, perhaps with 500 g of flour weight there will be a small amount of excess dough. If you wish to slightly scale the formula up or down for a larger or smaller pan, baker's percents make that essentially trivial, although if you've never seen them before they may seem strange due to unfamiliarity. With baker's percents, you can choose your own flour weight, and you use a calculator or spreadsheet to figure the weights of all the other ingredients. To determine when a loaf is done baking, you can use a digital stick thermometer, most breads are done baking when the internal temperature reaches 208 °F.

Thanks for another great recipe Floyd! A lovely dough, but not too rich. The long mixing didn't phase the Ankarsrum (now 1 year old) - used the paddle, not the dough hook. Made 115% of the recipe and got 15 large sweet rolls in an 11 x 17", with overnight fridge rise after shaping. A decadent addition to brunch, celebrating my daughter visiting from Boulder and my nearby son able to join us. Halfway through the 2nd BF I chilled the dough for 30-40 min. to firm it slightly for rolling out and filling. Used my cinnamon bun schmear but added a little Nutella, then sprinkled lightly with mini choc. chips to gild the lily and keep to Floyd's idea. Can't wait to make your rolls as written next time, and then play with other flavors.

All original site content copyright 2018 The Fresh Loaf unless stated otherwise. Content posted by community members is their own. The Fresh Loaf is not responsible for community member content. If you see anything inappropriate on the site or have any questions, contact me at floydm at thefreshloaf dot com. This site is powered by Drupal and Mollom.